“Oh Lord, yes, I could knit.  I’d sit up some nights and knit a half a sock and spin and card.

“My mother’s boys would card and spin a broach when they wasn’t doin’ nothin’ else, but nowadays you can’t get ’em to bring you a bucket of water.

“They say they is weaker and wiser, but I say they is weaker and foolisher.  That’s what I think.  You know they ain’t like the old folks was.  Folks works nowadays and keeps their chillun in school till they’re grown, and it don’t do ’em much good-some of ’em.”

Interviewer:  Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed:  Frank Wise, 1006 Victory Street,
                    Little Rock, Arkansas
Age:  81 to 85

Birth and Parents

“I was born in Burch County, Georgia, in 1854.  I came to this state in 1871; I think I was about sixteen years old then.

“My father was named Jim Wise and my mother was named Harriet Wise.  My father belonged to the Wises, and my mother to the Crawfords.  They didn’t live on the same plantation.  When they married, she was a Crawford.  Her old master was named Jim Crawford.  I don’t know how she and my father happened to meet up.  Wise and Crawford had adjoining plantations.  Both of them was in Burch County.  My father’s father was named Jacob Wise and his mother was named Martha.  I don’t remember the names of their master.  I don’t remember the names of my mother’s people.

War Memories

“I remember the year the War ended.  I remember when the Yankees came on the place that day the War ended.  We children was all settin’ out in the yard.  Some of them ran under the house when they saw the soldiers.  They were shooting the chickens and everything, taking the horses, and anything else they thought they could use.  They said to the old lady, ‘Lemme kill them little niggers.’  Old miss said, ’No, wait till you set them free.’  He said, ‘No, when we set them free, we ain’t goin’ to kill them.’  They got around in the house, under the house, and in the yard.  They asked the old lady, ‘Where is the horses?’ She said, ’I don’t know.’  They said, ‘Go down in the woods and get them.’  Somebody went down and brought back a mare and a mule and a colt.  They knocked the colt in the head and shot him.  They took the mare and the mule.  They took all the meat out of the smokehouse.  They didn’t set us free, and they didn’t tell us anything about freedom.  Not then.

How Freedom Came

“I don’t remember how we got the news of freedom.  I don’t remember what the slaves expected to get.  I don’t know what they got, if they got anything.  I don’t remember nothin’ about that.

Schooling

“I went to school about eight days.  That’s all the schooling I ever got.  I had a brother and sister who went to school, but I never went much.  I went to school what little I did right here in Lonoke County, Arkansas.  My teacher was Tom Fuller.  He was a colored man.  He came from down in Texas.  I learned everything I know by watching people and listenin’ to them.